Laminating apparatus

Details Laminating apparatus Laminating apparatus

2000-03-15

2001-11-13

Sells, James (Department: 1734)

Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture

Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor

Automatic and/or material-triggered control

C156S353000, C156S364000, C156S366000, C156S368000, C156S522000, C156S555000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06315020

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laminating apparatus in which a sheet is fed from each of a pair of sheet rolls and a medium such as a paper, a document, a card is sandwiched between the fed sheets to produce a laminate. In particular, the present invention relates to a laminating apparatus which performs a slack removal operation in the minimum area required to remove slack generated in the sheets unreeled from the sheet rolls, so that the medium can be laminated to produce an aesthetic laminate without any wrinkles between the sheets and the medium.
Furthermore, the present invention relates to a laminating apparatus capable of producing a laminate by coating a medium such as a document, a card, and the like with coating materials such as a synthetic resin film and the like and, particularly, to a laminating apparatus capable of simplifying the steps of producing a laminate to suppress labors or loads exerted on a user.
2. Description of Related Art
Laminating apparatus are mainly classified under the following types: one is a hot laminating type of unreeling two sheets from a pair of sheet rolls, sandwiching a medium such as a card between the fed sheets, and hot-pressing them to produce a laminate; and another is a cold laminating type of unreeling two sheets from a pair of sheet rolls, at least one or both of the sheets being applied with an adhesive, and adhesively sandwiching a medium such as a card between the fed sheets to produce a laminate.
Between the above two types, the latter cold type of laminating apparatus is becoming in common use because it needs no heating means such as a hot roller and thus it is easy to handle.
Such the cold type of laminating apparatus is exemplified in
FIGS. 18A
,
18
B and
19
. In those drawings, a laminating apparatus
100
is basically configured by a medium supply area A, a sheet supply area B, a laminate formation area C, and a cutting area D. Specifically, the medium supply area A includes a feed tray
102
for holding thereon media
101
such as documents, cards, etc. to be supplied into the apparatus. The sheet supply area B includes a pair of sheet rolls
105
,
106
for feeding sheets
103
,
104
respectively used to laminate the medium
101
. The laminate formation area C includes a pair of nip rollers
107
,
108
for transporting the medium
101
fed from the medium supply area A in a Y-axis direction while laminating it between the sheets
103
,
104
supplied from the sheet supply area B. The laminate
109
formed of the medium
110
and the sheets
103
,
104
laminating the medium
110
therebetween is send out from the lamination processing area C in a Y-axis direction. The cutting area D includes a lateral cutter blade
110
for cutting the laminate
109
along the end edge in a width direction (X-axis direction) thereof perpendicular to the send-out direction (Y-axis direction).
The sheet supply area B is constructed of a sheet cassette
111
in which an upper roll
105
comprising a non-adhesive sheet
103
made of a synthetic region film such as a polyethylene terephthalate film (which is referred to as PET film hereinafter) and a lower roll
106
comprising an adhesive sheet
104
made of a PET film applied with an adhesive on one surface thereof so that the sheet
104
is rolled with the adhesive face inside. The rolls
105
,
106
are rotatably mounted in the sheet cassette
111
. The non-adhesive sheet
103
unreeled from the upper roll
105
and the adhesive sheet
104
unreeled from the lower roll
106
are supplied together to the laminate formation area C while the adhesive face of the sheet
104
is opposite to the sheet
103
.
The feed tray
102
has a guide plate
112
for guiding the medium
101
to a nip position between the nip rollers
107
,
209
. The guide plate
112
is placed on the tray
102
at the end part thereof as shown in FIG.
19
. The feed tray
102
is mounted to a main unit
113
so that the guiding portion defined by the guide plate
112
is inserted between the upper and lower sheet rolls
105
and
106
in the sheet cassette
111
mounted in the main unit
113
.
The lateral cutter blade
110
is slidable supported on a bar
114
laid across the width of the main unit
113
at the side to which the laminate
109
is transported by the nip rollers
107
,
108
as shown in
FIGS. 18A and 18B
and
19
. When an arbitrary portion of the laminate
109
to be cut is advanced to the blade position, the blade
110
may be slid in the width (X-axis) direction to cut the laminate
109
along the end edge in the width direction at an arbitrary position in the send-out direction (Y-axis direction).
The laminating apparatus
100
constructed as above is used in the following manner. At first, when the medium
101
such as a card placed on the feed tray
102
is pushed forward, the front end of the medium
101
is guided to between the non-adhesive sheet
103
and the adhesive sheet
104
unreeled from the upper and lower rolls
105
and
106
respectively and to a nip position between the nip rollers
107
and
108
.
At this time, when a handle
115
is attached to a side wall of the main unit
113
is rotated, the medium
101
is transported together with the sheets
103
and
104
into between the nip rollers
107
and
108
while laminating them, and sent out as the laminate
109
. Thereafter, the laminate
109
is cut by means of the lateral cutter blade
110
in the width direction, thus providing a resultant laminate
109
constructed of the medium
101
whose both surfaces are covered by the sheets
103
and
104
.
Meanwhile, when the non-adhesive sheet
103
and the adhesive sheet
104
are unreeled from the upper and lower rolls
105
and
106
respectively in the sheet cassette
111
used in the above-mentioned laminating apparatus
100
in the prior art, the sheets
103
,
104
may have slack.
The rotation of the handle
115
is in direct conjunction with the rotation of the nip rollers
107
,
108
. Accordingly, this may cause the occurrence of slack in the sheets
103
,
104
according to the manner of rotating the handle
115
by a user. If a mechanism of preventing backward rotation of the rollers
107
,
108
is provided between the handle
115
and the rollers
107
,
108
, the sheets
103
,
104
unreeled from the upper and lower rolls
105
,
106
could be temporarily made tense, but not kept as stretched. This also would result in the occurrence of slack in the sheets
103
,
104
.
Such the slack in the sheets
103
,
104
causes a jamming of the medium
101
and wrinkles in the same when laminated, thus resulting in a problem that the medium
101
can not be aesthetically laminated.
It is also conceivable that, every time when the medium
101
is laminated with the sheets
103
,
104
to produce a laminate
109
, the sheets
103
,
104
are fed first by a predetermined length in order to remove the slack generated in the sheets
103
,
104
. This case may cause a wasteful consumption of the sheets
103
,
104
and an increase in production cost of the laminate
109
.
Furthermore, when the above-mentioned laminating apparatus
100
is used to produce a desired laminate
109
, the medium or paper
101
placed on the feed tray
102
and the guide plate
112
is inserted to the nip position between the rollers
107
,
108
, and the handle
115
is rotated by the corresponding turns to the length in an Y-axis direction of the medium
101
. By the nipping force of the rollers
107
,
108
, the non-adhesive sheet
103
and the adhesive sheet
104
are adhesively placed over the medium
101
. Then, the lateral cutter blade
110
is made to scan the laminate
109
in the X-axis direction to provide the desired laminate
109
. As mentioned above, a user should manually operate the apparatus
100
to produce the laminate
109
while confirming all of the producing steps. This gives extremely large labors and loads to the user.
In particular, in the case where the medium
101
is shorter in the extreme in the X-axis length tha

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